Duff & Forrest Family Photo – c1882

An absolutely priceless photo recovered through some computer wizardry today, courtesy of my cousin Catherine Duff. The photo was taken at Braco, the Duff Family home in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia about 1882.

[Click to enlarge or download.]

Duff & Forrest Family at Braco, 1882

Duff & Forrest Family 1882 (detail)

My 3x great-grandfather Reverend William Duff is in the doorway. He was 74 years old at the time.

Identified in the front row, left to right, are my great-great-grandfather John Forrest (1842-1920), his wife Annie Prescott Duff (1847-1930), their son George Forrest (1878-1958), his brother Archie Forrest (1875-1946), Rev. Duff’s daughter Maggie Duff (1853-1939), William Forrest (1873-1939) who was also a son of John Forrest and Annie Duff, and two women who are not positively identified.

Annie Fairbanks (1822-1899), who was Rev. Duff’s sister-in-law is identified as being one of the women in the photo. She moved in with the family when her sister died in 1856 and stayed there until her death. She would have been 60 in 1882.

I know from two other photos that Maggie Duff and her sister Bella were like two peas in a pod, and I feel like the woman standing next to Rev. Duff looks very much like the woman seated with the hat, so I tend to think that the standing woman is Bella Duff, the younger of the two.

My cousin Catherine and I feel that the older woman is probably Annie Fairbanks, and the woman seated to the left of her might be one of John Forrests sisters, either Helen or Isabella. Helen would have been 42 and Isabella would have been 50 years old in 1882. Since the woman doesn’t look much older than my great-great-grandmother Annie Duff (who was 35), I’m guessing it’s more likely Helen. The photo I have of Helen does bear a strong resemblance to the woman in question.

There is another woman living with the Duff family in the 1881 census (taken almost this same time). Her name was Emma Gow, a 75 year old widow from Scotland. There’s some possibility that the older of the two women seated at the right is Emma Gow, but it seems less likely than one of the scenarios above.

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About cthomas1967

Seeking to bring my ancestors out of the shadows of history and into the light.
I have always been interested in history, and at a few different times I tried to do a family tree, but wasn't able to do it with the technology that was available then. On a business trip I visited the World War I Museum in Kansas City, MO and it was a very impressive establishment. While I was there I remember thinking, "Didn't my great-grandfather father fight in World War I? And wasn't his brother killed alongside him in some famous battle? I wonder if I can find out where he died." That's what started it all.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2014 at 2:48 PM and posted in Duff, Fairbanks, Forrest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.